It was Jose Mourinho, in his peak years as a serial trophy collector, who delivered the kind of speech that should encourage Arsenal as Manchester City loom large in their wing mirrors.<\/p>\n
Mourinho was in his first season at Chelsea and he had taken them to the top of the Premier League, on course to win the title with something to spare. Yet Sir Alex Ferguson, manager of Manchester United, had questioned whether there might still be time for \u201ca Devon Loch moment\u201d \u2014 a reference to the racehorse that had run clear in the 1956 Grand National, the sport\u2019s UK showpiece, before falling on the final straight.<\/p>\n
At his next press conference, Mourinho had prepared his response. He had never heard of Devon Loch, he said, but he did know of a Portuguese proverb that he wanted to bring to Ferguson\u2019s attention and it was known as \u201cdie on the beach<\/em>\u201d \u2014 or, translated, dying on the beach.<\/p>\n Mourinho compared the two managers to swimmers at sea, himself the \u201cgood swimmer\u201d and Ferguson \u201cthe fellow who wants to chase me\u201d, and even demonstrated his range of swimming strokes as he explained what happened next. \u201cHe shouldn\u2019t chase me,\u201d said Chelsea\u2019s manager. \u201cHe should say to the boat, \u2018Please, take me a little bit closer\u2019. He\u2019s so enthusiastic chasing me \u2014 gasp, gasp, gasp \u2014 but he has a heart attack. When he reaches the beach, he dies. That, my friends, is our Devon Loch.\u201d<\/p>\n Unfortunately for Arsenal, there is a whole heap of evidence that Pep Guardiola\u2019s City are usually strong swimmers at this stage of the season. Two years ago, Arsenal had an eight-point lead at the top of the table. The year before, it was five. On both occasions, it ended with City\u2019s ribbons on the championship trophy.<\/p>\n Will it happen again? Nine points clear on February 10, Arsenal\u2019s lead has been whittled down to five. City have a game in hand and, if there is one thing that Arteta must know, it is that his former club usually excel in these moments. He was, after all, Guardiola\u2019s assistant in 2018-19 when City came from behind to win their last 14 matches and beat Liverpool to the title.<\/p>\n In another era, Ferguson used to call this part of the season \u201csqueaky bum time\u201d, and what you often find is that the relevant players remember these end-of-season chases, good and bad, for the rest of their lives.<\/p>\n Andy Cole, for example, has seen it from both sides. In 1996, he was part of the Manchester United side that successfully chased down the 12-point lead that had seemingly put Newcastle United, managed by Kevin Keegan, in an unassailable position.<\/p>\n \n Andy Cole on Manchester United\u2019s fateful final day trip to West Ham (Mike Hewitt\/Allsport)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Yet Cole can also remember a long pursuit of Blackburn Rovers, from the previous season, when Ferguson\u2019s team came up short. \u201cWe hunted them down to the last game of the season,\u201d the former England international striker tells The Athletic<\/em>. \u201cWe needed to win at West Ham and hope that Blackburn didn\u2019t win at Liverpool. The title would be decided in those 90 minutes.<\/p>\n \u201cI hit the post and forced two great saves from their goalkeeper, Ludek Miklosko, who had the game of his life. I did everything I could, but we couldn\u2019t score a winning goal and Blackburn won the league. It was very difficult to take because I took a lot of flak after. I got slaughtered by the media for missing chances, but I hit the target with every shot.\u201d<\/p>\n What nobody should expect in the coming weeks are the mind games that Ferguson brought into every title chase, be it with Arsene Wenger\u2019s Arsenal, Keegan\u2019s Newcastle, Mourinho\u2019s Chelsea, or whoever else was on his radar.<\/p>\n Perhaps you remember the season when Chelsea were having a wobble and Ferguson casually dropped in that \u201c(Andriy) Shevchenko seems to be at the core of it\u201d, heaping more pressure on the shoulders of a misfiring \u00a330million ($40m at today\u2019s rates) striker. Or the news conference when he walked in with a cheery hello for the television cameras. \u201cThe birds are whistling here,\u201d Ferguson declared, pointing outside to the blue skies. \u201cAnd the sparrows are waking up at Stamford Bridge coughing.\u201d<\/p>\n Most famously, there was the comeback against Newcastle in 1996, culminating in Keegan\u2019s \u201clove it\u201d rant on Sky Sports in response to Ferguson\u2019s mischief-making.<\/p>\n \u201cNewcastle had top players, but they didn\u2019t have the experience of winning titles that we had \u2014 and it started to show,\u201d says Cole. \u201cKevin is a good man, but an emotional heart-on-sleeve type of personality. He used to have a little tantrum if he was under pressure and he wouldn\u2019t speak to you for three or four days after a game if we had lost, but then he\u2019d be all, \u2018Come all lads, let\u2019s win at the weekend\u2019.<\/p>\n \u201cSir Alex Ferguson was different to Kevin. His players knew that they\u2019d have to graft at the end of the season and that there were no excuses for poor performances. And because the players had the experience, they dealt with it better.\u201d<\/p>\n Guardiola, in turn, is different from Ferguson and, for that matter, Keegan. Even when the Catalan used to get irritated by some of Jurgen Klopp\u2019s comments about City\u2019s financial power, he would usually resist getting involved in public exchanges. It\u2019s internally that Guardiola does his best work in these moments, working on the psychology of his players rather than the opposition.<\/p>\n \n Jurgen Klopp (left) and Pep Guardiola tended to avoid public spats (Michael Regan\/Getty Images)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n City, as a whole, are also a very different club from the first time they found themselves in this kind of position, under Roberto Mancini\u2019s management in the 2011-12 season, and initiated a PR campaign based around the word \u2018Together\u2019. A quote from Sergio Aguero \u2014 \u201cwe\u2019ll fight to the end\u201d \u2014 was also picked up as they caught and overhauled Manchester United, who had an eight-point lead with six games to go before suffering their own Devon Loch moment. <\/p>\n Overall, though, City don\u2019t have to go in for buzzwords and PR campaigns these days because they have shown over the years that they don\u2019t usually run out of breath in these late-season chases.<\/p>\n The 2018-19 season, for example. When City lost 2-1 at Newcastle in late-January that season, Liverpool had the opportunity to open up a seven-point lead by beating Leicester City at Anfield the following night.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of the belief had gone at the club,\u201d Vincent Kompany reflected in his book, Treble Triumph, telling the story about how City also won the FA Cup and League Cup that year. \u201cThere were a lot of people who didn\u2019t believe we could win the league.\u201d<\/p>\n Kompany delivered a long, impassioned speech the next morning to pick everyone off the floor. Arteta would have been present, presumably, as Kompany urged them to keep in mind there would be \u201clittle slip-ups\u201d from the team at the top of the league. The following night, Liverpool did exactly that, drawing 1-1 with Leicester. After that, City\u2019s players were so devoted to clawing back the five-point deficit that there was an unofficial rule that nobody should go out to celebrate wins.<\/p>\n \u201cI remember feeling nervous when I saw other lads going out to restaurants, even if it was just for a meal with their family,\u201d Kompany explained. \u201cShould they be doing that while we\u2019re in such a close title race? That\u2019s how many of us were feeling at the time. Everyone was keeping each other in check.\u201d<\/p>\n What is really intriguing about that period is that some of the players, Kompany included, believe Guardiola started playing mind games on his own team. They noted how unusually deflated he sounded in his interviews after the Newcastle defeat, as though he had completely lost faith in them. Was it to get a reaction? To sting them into action? To motivate them into showing he was wrong?<\/p>\n Others from the City regime at the time can remember, without wishing to be quoted, how it was difficult to sleep at night because the tension was so extreme.<\/p>\n More than anything, they recall how Guardiola would often go in the opposite way to everybody else \u2014 deliberately, almost certainly. When there was tension on the training ground, the coach would go out of his way to create a lighthearted session and make sure the mood was full of humour and levity. But if everything seemed happy and relaxed, he would disturb the peace by creating some kind of dispute and riling everyone up.<\/p>\n If the team had a difficult away trip, Guardiola would approach it in a particularly calm way, filling his players with confidence. But when City were playing at home against soon-to-be-relegated Cardiff City, he talked it up like a World Cup final, determined not to allow a flicker of complacency to creep in.<\/p>\n City proceeded to beat Arsenal, Everton, Chelsea, West Ham Unted, Bournemouth, Watford, Fulham, Cardiff, Crystal Palace, Tottenham Hotspur, Manchester United, Burnley, Leicester and Brighton & Hove Albion. They needed every one of those 14 wins. Guardiola\u2019s team finished on 98 points, one ahead of Liverpool.<\/p>\n \u201cYou could feel the sense of absolute unity,\u201d Marc Boixasa, then City\u2019s first-team operations manager, recalled in the book, Pep\u2019s City, co-authored by Pol Ballus and Lu Martin. \u201cSometimes we played on Saturday, but Liverpool\u2019s game was on the Sunday. Players would come in for training or a recovery session and then everyone would gather in the cafeteria to watch the Liverpool game together.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019d all be so hyped-up and tense. Every foul, every throw-in, we\u2019d all be on our feet, protesting, like fans in a pub. We all noticed the unbreakable bond that formed over those weeks and months.\u201d<\/p>\n Does it matter which team plays first? Psychologically, yes, and it is interesting to note from the current title race that of City\u2019s five league matches from February 11 to March 14, there are four occasions when they have been scheduled to play a day in advance of Arteta\u2019s team (on the other occasion, March 4, both sides kick off at the same time).<\/p>\n Keegan was adamant that the TV scheduling worked against Newcastle in 1996, arguing that the pressure was always piled on the team that played second. Mauricio Pochettino used to say the same when Tottenham Hotspur were chasing Leicester in 2015-16 (with some validity, perhaps, given that Leicester went first on nine of their last 13 fixtures).<\/p>\n Wenger also brought up the fixture scheduling sometimes during his managerial tete-a-tetes with Ferguson. And Fergie, being Fergie, would respond in conspiratorial terms by questioning how Arsenal\u2019s vice-chairman, David Dein, was allowed a senior position within the Football Association (never mind that David Gill, United\u2019s chief executive, had exactly the same in future years).<\/p>\n At this stage of the season, however, there are all sorts of different factors that will decide who takes the glory. Will one team get the rub of the green with refereeing decisions? Is it about moral courage now? Or will it come down to player availability and who suffers, or not, with injuries and suspensions?<\/p>\n In 1997-98, for example, don\u2019t underestimate the importance of Manchester United losing Roy Keane from September onwards. \u201cIt was our turn to throw away a lead,\u201d says Cole. \u201cWe had been 13 points clear of Arsenal, but started to weaken after Christmas when we were usually strong.<\/p>\n \u201cWe lost stupidly against Southampton and Leicester in successive league games. We were missing key players through injury, like our captain, Roy Keane, and Arsenal were not.<\/p>\n \u201cArsenal came to Old Trafford and beat us 1-0 with a Marc Overmars goal. He was so quick and took a chance that gave them three points. That gave them the momentum. We wouldn\u2019t lose again, but the damage was done and Arsenal were ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n \n Marc Overmars scores a crucial winner for Arsenal at Manchester United in 1998 (Shaun Botterill\/Allsport)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Squeaky bum time, incidentally, now has its own place in the Oxford English Dictionary as a \u201cparticularly tense period of time, especially leading up to the climax of a competition or event\u201d.<\/p>\n What is not so well known is that the journalists in Ferguson\u2019s company when he first used this phrase in 2003 were not entirely sure, his Glaswegian accent being so strong, whether he had said \u201csqueaky bum time\u201d or \u201csqueeze your bum time\u201d. A vote was taken among the relevant correspondents and the language of football was changed forever.<\/p>\n And the biggest problem for Arsenal? Showing the football world that, well, their bum is not as squeaky as some people believe.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It was Jose Mourinho, in his peak years as a serial trophy collector, who delivered the kind of speech that should encourage Arsenal as Manchester City loom large in their … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":285,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipsport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/athletic\/uploads\/wp\/2026\/02\/26064036\/GettyImages-1217246-e1772106058928.jpg\")
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